Hot in the Himalayas
by Bionically
Summary: Revenge is a dish best served cold. In the icy reaches of the Himalayas, years after their ill-conceived affair, Hermione plots out the steps to her revenge with a few old friends. It just so happens that things don't turn out exactly the way she plans, not when tempers are running so hot. Written for the 2019 Salt and Pepper Fest. Cover made by the talented MCal.
1. Step 1: Rehashing the Past

**AN: This five-shot is completed and will be uploaded in the upcoming days.**

It had been twenty years since it ended, but Hermione wasn't good at forgetting, or forgiving. Usually, she put it completely out of her mind, because to give it any more thought meant imbuing it with more significance than it had. But one thing that she regretted a lot was the fact she hadn't gotten revenge on one Draco Malfoy before she left England.

Of course, so many things had happened since that time. She had a completely different career, a completely different life—she was, in fact, living in a completely different part of the world now.

But when his name cropped up in the middle of drinks, it brought all her old resentments tumbling right back to smack her right in the face.

The three of them were coworkers in this lonely and high part of the world. Padma Patil had been in the Himalayas the longest, their regional expert on dye-based glamours. Theo Nott was the Unspeakable responsible for the mysteries of the mountains. And Hermione Granger was the most recent Hogwarts alumnus to be transplanted here and she was responsible for restoration and legal rights.

Officially she was the liaison on an international task force and no longer worked for the British Ministry, but she still unofficially reported back to them. It had been quite a step down from her old job within the Minister's advisory board where she had been slated for the Minister's position until her health took precedence in her life. It turned out that the mind could be willing, but the body was just plain getting older.

Days and nights tended to be both cold and dry, but not in the alcoholic sense, and the three were definitely not always sober after hours, especially once they had worked together for a few months and Hermione's defenses had started to crack in the isolation.

On this particular night, Hermione had brought Theo a very coveted invitation to the Mediterranean Magical Coalition Festival to the pub with her. He looked gleeful enough to begin dancing atop the tables as she handed him the glossy gold invitation.

"Patrice Lowensberg, here I come," Theo said. "No innuendo intended as of yet. You can be my plus one." This was to Padma.

Padma acknowledged the comment with a nod before gesturing over the waitress for another round of the local alcohol, a heady beverage called pahabier brewed from a wheat-like plant that grew high in the mountains. At this rate, they'd be sloshed before ten. "Might as well try my luck there," Padma said with a prosaic shrug.

Padma complained regularly about the lack of available wizards in the Himalayan region who didn't resemble a hairy goat. Hermione nodded encouragingly at her. "Have fun. I'm sure at least Theo will."

That was when Theo had piped up and said, "You know who else will be there? Draco Malfoy."

Hermione almost spit out the contents of her mouth. As it was, she began coughing like mad and both Padma and Theo had to pat her on the back at least ten times for her to get her breathing under control.

"At the Mediterranean Magical Coalition Annual Festival?" Padma asked, and Hermione was glad Padma asked so that she didn't have to.

Theo flashed the invitation at them. "His family always went to all the Mediterranean shindigs."

"Pretentious arse." The words jumped out of Hermione's lips before she could think twice. "If I ever see him again, I would give him a good slap to the face."

Padma looked puzzled. "How come? I mean, obviously he was horrible to you when we were at school, but I thought you two had become friends. You seemed very chummy when you were Chair of Foreign Affairs and he was the main consultant for the European organisations."

Hermione wished she hadn't said anything. "No reason."

"And aren't your children best friends or something?" Padma had a thoughtful frown on her face, the herald for questions that would lead her straight to the truth. Usually, she was much too polite to probe, but with a few drinks under her belt, all her latent lawyering skills came up to the forefront.

A slow smile made its way across Theo's face. "Oh, no, I get it now. You two had a thing."

Hermione sputtered and would have started coughing again, except Padma spoke up for her. "Stop teasing her, Theo. Of course she didn't. Did you, Hermione?"

Hermione busied herself with finishing the contents of her glass. Perhaps a little too busy, since it wasn't that imperative a task. When she looked up after swiping the back of her hand across her mouth, it was to find the both of them staring at her with wide-eyed expressions.

"You didn't," exclaimed Padma, looking slack-jawed.

"You did!" exclaimed Theo, looking far too delighted.

"I am really, really glad you're interested in Patrice Lowensberg, Theo." Hermione avoided both of their avid eyes. They were simultaneously trying to drill holes in her skull from the force of their gaze. "I totally support you going for an older woman. This is all incredibly empowering, that a woman of seventy could—"

"Shut up," Theo said, cutting her off with a slash of a hand. He was sitting up at attention, having sensed a juicy story.

Padma was not far behind, diplomacy only going so far before curiosity took over. "Yeah, spill."

Hermione sighed. She eyed the bartender wistfully and wished she were sitting on one of those lone barstools by herself. The bar was never full, not even on a Friday night, which accounted for them feeling right at home there after hours.

Or better yet, she could return back to base. Except there would be no privacy there either, and it was cold there, magic only going so far against the mighty forces of unending wind chill. She looked back at the two unblinking faces before her and sighed again.

That was when the whole story came tumbling out.

Twenty years ago

They met up again as a result of their children. Hermione would blame this all on Rose if she could, except Rose had no idea that any of this had happened, and some things your kids just didn't need to know.

Hermione had gotten an urgent owl in the middle of the night informing her that although this was not an emergency, as per current Hogwarts policy, she was being notified that her daughter and Scorpius Malfoy had decided to run off together in the middle of the night during term.

Of course, she had immediately gone off to the school alone. There was no reason to tell Ron if things weren't serious, and her ex-husband was busy sitting with his wife just gone into labor earlier that morning.

So, there she and Malfoy sat in the Headmistress' office in chairs that seemed just a tad too small and short, so that she felt like a schoolgirl again looking up at the headmistress' desk set upon a podium. There she had rolled her eyes when she heard of Rose and Scorpius' destination to the Ice Cave in Hallstatt. The supposed origin of Celtic magic.

Hermione remembered very clearly rolling her eyes at that.

Rose was still carrying one large grudge against Ron for getting remarried. Her daughter despised and was jealous of Celine in equal parts and had completely stopped talking to her father now that he was to be a new dad. Recently, her speech was littered with how Scorpius' father was such a faithful and honourable husband, the kind who stayed true to his wife even after she had passed away, unlike some people. They had gotten their vows done right, in a magical circle guaranteed for eternal bonding. Maybe if Hermione and Ron had done that instead of some Muggle ceremony for the Grangers, they would still be together.

As for Hermione, she had discovered that eye-rolling wasn't the sole domain of teenagers. She didn't want to speak ill of anyone, but at times she wanted to interject with, "Yeah, he's alright now, but did you know what a little git Draco Malfoy used to be?"

After being informed by the Headmistress that their presence was not necessary and that they would be allowed half an hour with their respective children the next day, Hermione had traipsed off in search of a pint at the Leaky Cauldron. Uninvited, Malfoy had tagged along.

Conversation had been civil at first. Those stupid kids, yadda yadda, things like that. What were those pubescent kids thinking? Then, it got serious.

"I'm sorry about your wife," Hermione had said. Humbly. Earnestly. All the speeches her daughter had given her about Malfoy's fidelity had evidently sunk in. She had been reluctantly impressed perhaps, by his devotion to his wife long after her passing.

"I'm sorry about your husband too," he replied, just as sincerely. Or so she thought.

"I'm not." She was surprised at his sympathy over her divorce. Rose and her annoying theories aside, she and Ron had had some good times, but she wasn't pining for him or anything. They were better as they were now and probably should always have just remained friends. Also, it might have been that the sentiment was foreign to her idea of him.

Malfoy smirked, eradicating what was clearly a front of sympathy. "You should be. You married him in the first place."

His implication suddenly hit her. "You—oh, shut up, Malfoy!"

He laughed. "That's very good. Did it take long to come up with that?"

"Hey, you know what?" She was so focused on insulting him that she was barely aware her words were starting to slur. "I'm sorry my kid had to drag your kid into this. I'm pretty sure your kid didn't have the brains to come up with something like this."

"You're right, he didn't. This didn't take brains at all. This took a distinct lack of brains."

For the first time since she saw him this evening, the lines of strain around his mouth had disappeared and he looked entirely too happy at her expense. Hermione's eyes narrowed and she threw the rest of her drink in his face. There wasn't a lot left, and he commented on it.

"Buy me another drink then, and I'll throw that one," she said, and damned if he didn't do just that.

She didn't throw it though. She gazed at him curiously. They were in their thirties now, and he looked surprisingly good. Hermione wondered how much of that was attributable to the beer and how much to her daughter's brainwashing. He stared straight back at her, as though aware of her inspection. Then he slowly rubbed two fingers over the side of his cheeks where the beer had sloshed him and, bringing them to his lips, he licked his fingers dry. Watching him and his no longer ferret-like face, she licked her lips as well.

His eyes had dropped to her mouth and he said the one thing that she never thought he say. It was something she had never expected they'd ever mention again. "I've thought about you, you know."

"Shut up," she said, looking away, intent only on tossing back the rest of the drink he bought her.

Except his hand stopped her from picking up her drink. "Didn't you ever think about me?"

There was something of a smirk on his face, but behind that, there was a bit of earnestness, too.

And in considering his question, Hermione realised that she had thought about him.

She had, in fact, given thought to that one time in eighth year, when a drunken Draco Malfoy had sobbed an apology to her after a Yule Ball that fell sadly flat with so many of their classmates absent. She had patted him awkwardly on his arm, which was the closest appendage to her. It was clear just what kind of state he was in, what with the stress of their NEWTs year combined with the war last year, topped off with alcohol he probably snuck into the dorms. Most of them had sobbed on one another by then, but Draco probably had nobody to sob on, given the stick up his arse for most of his life. Also, there was the fact that his paid companions had taken a leave of permanent absence from his side that year.

They had been on separate staircases when they first saw each other, but the stairs moved, secluding them in one of the archways for a good hour or so. After his astounding apology (that she chalked up to his inebriated state), they stayed in place to wait out the infrastructure, listening to the music interspersed with echoes of laughter from the Great Hall, watching the spill of light flicker with the movement of people. The darkness of the night settled in around them, making it easier to make believe that she wasn't sitting here alone with him, but rather with someone else.

She wondered if he would regret his words the next day, when he woke with a blinding hangover.

In the midst of these thoughts, he suddenly turned intense red-rimmed eyes on her and breathed alcoholic fumes in her face as he said, "Hit me, Granger."

He was completely crowding her space and forcing her to lean backwards over the stone stairs to maintain some semblance of distance. She almost fell over, but he caught her on her elbow and hauled her upright.

"What?" She tried to struggle free, but the scrawny thing was stronger than he looked. He smelled like he had been dunked into a vat of alcohol.

"Hit me in the face, Granger. You know you want to and it'll make me feel better. I wasn't sorry for third year, but I'm sorry now, for not doing a damn thing while you got tortured—"

"Oh, shut up, Malfoy." She tried to shove him away. Almost everyone she had come across had apologised to her for that. It was strange that he was too, except he had always wanted to be on whatever bandwagon others were on. Also, someone definitely spiked the punch, because she felt decidedly strange being so close to him that their bodies were being pressed up against each other. She had never found his annoying little face attractive, preferring character over supposed looks, but he had swagger alright, and apparently her hormones were not immune to swagger, no matter what her brains wanted to believe.

"Hit me. Hit me. C'mon, I deserve it and you want to. You know you want to—hit me!"

She hit him then, because if she hadn't wanted to before now, she definitely did now, because he was irritating her so damned much.

He reared off her, holding one hand to his cheek like he had third year, his mouth open.

Then she was the one smirking at him. She shrugged as he stalked back to grab her by the upper arms. "Hey, you told me to," she protested.

He didn't seem drunk in the least as he stared down at her with those red-rimmed silver eyes. "I didn't think you were going to!"

She shrugged again. "Well, I can't help it if you're so slappable."

He scowled down at her and shook her. Just for that, she slapped him again, and then he kissed her.

That shocked the hell out of her, but not as much as his next words, which were, "Merlin, I've been wanting to do that for ages."

That was when she kissed him back.

Present Day

"What a story," Padma said, although Hermione had left most of it out. Such as the fact Hermione could remember just how long Malfoy could look at you without blinking. About how he had told her how beautiful she was, even though she had never believed him, because Astoria Greengrass, now there was a real beauty and he had married her, hadn't he?

She didn't talk about a lot of things. There was no point in talking about how persistent he was, in the same way he had been in school and yet different, in a good way this time. He had shown up in Sark when she had been sent there for a three-day assignment. Then he had turned up again in Bear Island. Out of the blue, my arse.

It had all been incredibly flattering. The man had a certain amount of style and spared no expense on her account. He was alternately carefree and intense about things in a way that was foreign to her in contrast to the other men in her life, and it was addictive, the amount of attention he paid to her.

On the other side of the equation, he was incredibly selfish and seemed to not comprehend that she had a job. A damn good job that she was very proud of, and being marked for Minister meant a lot of sacrifices on her end and it was inevitable that whoever she was seeing romantically (and secretly) would bear the brunt of that.

At the end of their closet affair, it had been mostly hard words exchanged. He was angry and sulky that she didn't appreciate being whisked off on a South American trip for two weeks when she was fully booked with council meetings for the next month. Yes, of course she had promised they could make time, but she couldn't right now, couldn't he understand that?

Apparently he couldn't. "I'm leaving. You and your job can fuck off," he had all but snarled. "Why don't you owl me when you make Minister? Think you'd have time for a pity fuck then?"

And then after that snide rhetoric which underlined just how superficial their relationship had been, he had slammed out of the high-priced bungalow, leaving her just as ticked off as he was. What next left her more than ticked off—it made her shake with disbelief. He had left South America and left her stranded on the little vacation island with a Portkey that wasn't due to activate for the next two weeks.

Hermione had flown around the place in a state of rage for the next few hours, only just preventing herself from wrecking everything in the room. Then she realised that such action was silly when she had worked with the Unspeakable department in the past and learned a thing or two. For example, she knew that long-distance Portus spells could be accomplished if one wielded a Pegasus or phoenix feather core wand, but not, for example, a unicorn or dragon heartstring.

And so, using her superior brain, she got out of there and when she got home, she shrank down everything that Malfoy had at her place, which by then had accrued to a disturbing volume, and owled it to him. Her faithful owl also went back for her things, but she never got them, and what was more, she never even got an explanation or an apology. But that was the sort of pettiness Hermione guessed he always was capable of and she had just forgotten it.

That was fine too.

Hermione was quite good at compartmentalising. She threw herself all the harder into her work. She didn't think about him, not even when she started to work on her campaign. Nope, the fact that she would win and become Minister would be the icing on the cake, and no, she most definitely would not be contacting him then. Her two-fingered rejoinder would be her smiling face on the front of the Prophet when she was elected.

Only, it never got that far.

She never even made it on the roster.

After another year of trying and developing ulcers from the stress, Hermione took herself off to recover. And then she realised there was more to life than politics; there was a whole world out there.

* * *

"Closure," Theo said. "That's what you need."

Hermione looked down at her glass, which was empty. She drank from it again, just to be sure before looking up at the two of them with marginally improved equilibrium. "I don't need closure. I'm fine!" She waved her hand for emphasis. A big wave to show just how fine she was.

"You need to slap him in the face," Padma said. "And I need to be there to see it this time. Ron told everyone who would listen about that time third year, but nobody really believed him. Did it really happen?"

"It did." Theo confirmed with a nod. "I heard about it from Goyle."

"And you did it again in your eighth year?" Padma looked incredulous. "That was what started all this? Is he a masochist or something?"

"Nothing happened." Hermione wanted that to be clear. "It was a drunken snog. It didn't go anywhere." Not then, anyway.

"Still." Padma's face was screwed up in an expression of disbelief, as though she were trying to process how it could have even happened in the first place. She took a sip of her drink, but her face still bore the same confused look.

"You'll burn a hole in your brain, Padma darling," Theo said, grinning. Now that the secret was out and his curiosity shared, he sat back in his chair, one ankle over the other knee, his dashing robes parted and falling to either side of his chair. "What you don't know is that this was always their kinky form of foreplay. Draco's always had a thing for Hermione here. You should have seen the caricatures he drew of her in his spare time."

"He did not." Hermione's denial was automatic, although something fluttered inside her stomach and her face felt hot. She tamped it down. Theo had no idea what he was on about; Unspeakables were notoriously unstable creatures.

"Deny it if you must." Theo continued to grin in his knowing way. He latched his fingers behind his head. "Giant jubblies you had in them, too, if you were interested. I'm still rooting for you to lay on one him though. Couldn't happen to a nicer man."

Padma seemed to be on the same boat, if for different reasons. "You should do it. I've never hit a man in my life. I'd love to live vicariously through you."

"He really was such an incredible bastard." Hermione looked down at the table and saw that her hand was clenched into a fist. A fist that planned to plow right through the air to land in the middle of Malfoy's stupid smirky face.

Alright, she could admit it now. It hurt, alright? It really, really hurt. It hurt that he had pursued her for sex and had taken off the moment it got inconvenient for him. The utter bastard. Ron never did anything like that, and she had set birds on him, and wewe, other stuff too, over the course of their short marriage.

What was more, it rankled that it had been him, Draco Malfoy, bigot extraordinaire, that had gotten through her defenses. There were other men since that time who had seemed interested, but nothing that had panned out. She had been too bitter for any more relationships, and that was kind of on him too.

Of course, she wasn't going to take herself out of the equation. She took responsibility for the rest of it. For being so foolish that she let herself be swept up into a sexual relationship with him, when Terry Boot had been widowed and interested. Ooh, and Roger Davies. That had been kind of a shocker, but rather flattering for all that. But they all ended in nothing.

Because Malfoy was always there. There with the coffee and the takeout when she had been too tired to go out to eat. There to discuss possible legislative reforms. There when she had been stymied at charity balls, and there at all her outreach programs.

And she had lied to herself too, and told herself that it didn't matter when he was photographed with other women, although she noticed he never even bothered denying it. God, what an absolute fool she was. Yes, a good punch to the face was what would really make her weekend. She might even top that off with something else too, like a Portkey somewhere cold, to freeze off his bits?

Revenge was sounding better and better.


	2. Step 2: Preparing for Battle

The Mediterranean Magical Coalition Festival took place in an ostentatious manor house that looked like it was floating in the midst of a giant pool. It was, in fact, an illusion that gave off a shimmery mirrored effect. The iridescent mist that immersed the entire place, however, was not just for effect. It was a very sophisticated detection charm, and all wands were kept at the reception desk.

Padma immediately picked up on how shoddy this security measure actually was. "Great. Now we're all sitting ducks for someone who's been practising his wandless magic for a decade."

Normally, Hermione would have been anxious about this too, but she gave up her wand without a thought. That was because this event was probably the fanciest she had ever attended, and that was saying something when she had attended quite a number of dos. But after spending the better part of the last three years hopping around in the Himalayas, she had gotten used to very spartan accommodations. What had seemed excessive in their cliffside base seemed underdressed in the sparkling array of finery here.

She was heavily glamoured, thanks to Padma. Currently, Hermione looked like a tall, svelte blond with a very deep cleavage. The amount of second looks she was getting was at once flattering and depressing.

"I don't know why you have to disguise yourself," Padma had said. "Wouldn't it take away from the satisfaction if he doesn't know it's you who's smacked him across the face?"

Except Hermione didn't want to give Malfoy the satisfaction of knowing that she cared even that much. If the closure were only for her, she could handle leading him on under disguise. And, frankly, it'd do her resolve some good to find out just how much he slobbered over her exact opposite physical counterpart.

Outwardly, though, she had explained, "I wouldn't be able to get closer to him as me. He'd suspect my agenda in a second, and I wouldn't even have a wand on me. Plus, look at me. Aren't I every man's quintessential type?"

From the way Padma furrowed her brow at her, Hermione could tell that her friend had no idea what it was like to be made fun of for not caring about her looks, for having big teeth and bushy hair. Padma looked easily ten years younger and her ordeal with finding love had never been about her physical appearance.

"I think you're selling yourself short," was all Padma said. "You're usually pretty decent but now you just look like—well, like someone glamoured."

"Why would you think this was every man's quintessential type?" Theo asked, looking very curious. He had been sitting on the side watching Padma put her together with bright, interested eyes. What had started as a demonstration of Padma's new and about to be patented dye-spell had turned into a sightly lascivious show for the breast-inclined individual.

"Because this is what every man marries," Hermione said, unable to help the snort that slipped out. "Harry, for all that I love him, only went for the most gorgeous girls around. Ron had a thing for Fleur in school and then he married Celine, who, if you haven't noticed, is a size zero and is almost six feet tall. Malfoy married Astoria." Who had been a raving beauty.

"But you're cuter," Theo said, smiling as though he thought he had given her a great compliment.

Hermione didn't bother to respond, because she didn't want to be cute. It was somewhat silly to admit this now, when she should have done it a few decades younger to come to terms with what was in her genes. She wanted to be svelte and mysterious like Padma, even though Padma insisted she was only thinking about what she had for breakfast when she looked deep in thought. She wanted to be tall and have great breasts, instead of it not mattering what she wore because the cleavage remained the same and just as nonexistent. She wanted to have legs up to her armpits.

She was getting it all today and the height was great. The breasts felt a bit foreign and she kept looking down to see the big mountains on her chest instead of mole hills. She wanted to fondle herself a bit, because they felt that foreign and she wanted to make sure they belonged to her body. Soon, it was going to be terrible, because she was going to find out what she had known all along, that Malfoy was a completely superficial git. Maybe he would fondle her giant blobs before she landed a punch on him.

Closure.

That was what she had to keep reminding herself.

"And not that it matters," Theo said suddenly, locking eyes with Hermione on the mirror that Padma had conjured. "But Draco didn't have a thing for tall and blonde and curvy. He never even noticed Astoria in school, and that was something because she and Daphne were together all the time."

They were all proven wrong now, because Hermione had seen Draco Malfoy, his bright hair giving him away in the sea of rainbow-hued dress robes. He had caught her eye almost immediately, and Hermione's stomach had given an unconscious flutter before she realised that she didn't look anything like her real self. Typical.

Hermione turned her back on him and spoke to Padma from out the side of one mouth, for all as though she were in a bad spy film. "There he is. At my three o'clock."

"What?" was Padma's response before she gazed obligingly and rather obviously in that direction despite Hermione's hissed admonitions to "play it cool." "Oh, I see him. He's looking right at me."

"He's coming over," Theo said in a much more subdued manner. He gazed around at the room from under dark lashes, his mouth hidden by the rim of his glass. Apparently, they taught Unspeakables something about subterfuge, or maybe it just came naturally to Theo.

Hermione kept her back to the room until she heard the unmistakable clipped voice of Draco Malfoy and his "Buonasera."

"We're all British." Padma's tone was very dry as she leaned against the high round table to survey Malfoy. "So you needn't try to impress us with your Italian."

Hermione almost smirked at Padma's loyalty, but then she turned around in time to catch the quirk of Malfoy's eyebrow as he stared straight back at her with unblinking regard. "Really? I don't believe we're acquainted."

"English-speaking is what she meant," Hermione couldn't help but correct Padma, her pulse beating double time at the dead giveaway. Britain's wizarding population wasn't large enough to have a statuesque blonde be successfully hidden away for so long.

He wore modern close-fitted short black robes and black trousers, with the silver embroidery and intricate buttons acting as the only decoration. The sleeves of his robes had another layer of fabric at the shoulders, a separate cape for his arms, which Hermione knew were usually charmed with an extra layer of disillusionment and extension spells. Tonight, they probably only acted as decoration and had the effect of making him look bigger and grander than she remembered. But then, they had never attended any such balls together.

In contrast, Hermione's emerald green dress offered no such concealment and was a nod to the warmth of the Mediterranean region, with the straps digging into her shoulders to support her new mammary appendages and what seemed like a foot of bared expanse at the decolletage as well as cut-outs at her waist and lower back. What had seemed bare and cold in the reaches of the Himalayas seemed to actually be fairly appropriate here.

He nodded to Theo before his face, then his eyes, turned in her direction, a beat slower. Then he took one step back before letting his eyes very deliberately drift down to her feet and then stop momentarily at her chest before traveling back up to her face. A slow lopsided smile drew up one side of his mouth. "Is that right?"

"Obviously." Hermione's tone was snappish and curt for a moment before she met Padma's warning expression. She hurriedly schooled her expression into her previously practised suggestive smile. It wobbled on her face as she met Draco's unblinking silver gaze.

Over his shoulder, Theo grinned wickedly at her and mouthed, "Have fun," before saying aloud, "I'm off to pursue my own quarry. Cheerio."

"Ta-ta," Hermione said, using her most husky voice. She sidled forward and had the pleasure of seeing Draco blink twice. For a moment or two, she had wondered if Draco had seen through her disguise, but just now, a flicker of uncertainty flashed across his face.

He surveyed her again, without any discernible expression crossing his face. "Do we know each other?"

"No, but I'd like to." Hermione lowered her eyelashes for dramatic effect before winking at him. Maybe it was a bit much, because she caught a bemused expression on Padma's face.

Draco also looked more wary than charmed. She had always thought he was a Lothario in later years, but he was behaving more like Poirot. Perhaps she was overdoing it a bit.

"Would you care to dance?" she asked, continuing to take the lead. If she wanted to get a shot at her revenge, then she had to actively put it in motion.

Draco was being deliberately uncooperative though. He glanced toward Padma and rubbed at his chin, his eyes flickering around the room before landing back on her. He smiled politely before agreeing in an extremely unflattering fashion. "Why not?"

This was not what she had envisioned. Somehow, she had genuinely believed that tempting him would be a piece of cake, like dangling meat wrapped in his favorite colours in front of a slavering hound. Instead, he was already starting to look distant. She cast about for things her physical embodiment would say. "This place is simply—magical." Alright, so that wasn't quite it, probably.

The smile he gave her in response was close-lipped. He obligingly placed a hand at her back to guide her to the dance floor, and she straightened a bit, to get away from his hand. When they faced each other again, she saw that her action hadn't gone unnoticed; he had a quizzical expression on his face.

"Do you work with Padma and Theo?" he asked, his head tilted slightly to the side, that clinical wariness in his eyes again.

"No, I know Theo from...other places," she said, sticking to the story that they had planned moments before Flooing in.

"Ah." From that one-syllable sound, Hermione thought that Draco might have gathered quite a bit of information from her words and her hesitation, much as Theo had surmised. And although she and Padma had quickly shot Theo's negativity down, it appeared that Theo had been more perceptive than they realised. Draco was starting to drift off, and it appeared that he was scanning the crowd for something better.

Better than this? Hermione wanted to demand. Her conversation obviously could stand a little work, but there was nothing wrong with her appearance—unless Padma was wrong and her glamour was starting to slip.

She had to keep him with her, at least long enough for him to drop his guard. Have a few more drinks. Anything.

Hermione pretended to trip and threw herself completely against him, laughing breathlessly as she murmured an apology. "I must have gotten started a bit early with the partying." That sort of thing always had Ron going cross-eyed, especially combined with a low decolletage. Hermione would have blushed at doing anything so ridiculous, but her blonde counterpart was unembarrassable.

Draco expelled a puff of air before he helped her upright with warm hands on her arms. Unselfconsciously, she gave a little shiver, and his arms paused and he slowly drew himself away part-way.

"You smell delicious," he said, his eyes glittering again in the way it had just before she started to flirt with him. And now it appeared he was all the way interested, if the way he held her against him was any indication. His arm was an iron band across the small of her back as she strained to keep their faces at least a handsbreadth apart.

"I pulled out all the stops," she said, trying to keep the giddiness out of her expression as she tried to remember what she had done perfume-wise before being encased in Padma's glamour dye-spell. Nothing. She wore nothing. There was probably some hand soap from when she went to the restroom, but that was it. It was rather floral though, and she didn't think it was anything particularly special, but perhaps his comment was just a line.

He definitely seemed interested now. Perhaps he had a thing for floral hand soap.

He murmured against her temple, his breath tickling her skin, "I suppose it would be too forward of me to invite you some place a bit more private?"

There was a suggestive quirk to his brow, but the arm at the back of her had been removed. It was her choice, and his expression regarded it as such.

It was also the perfect opportunity for such a slag. She would also have her wand as well.

"Where?" she asked in her regular tone of voice. She had momentarily forgotten to use her husky, coy voice and smiled to cover up her lapse.

Now Draco was the one looking amused. "My room. The penthouse suite. Meet me in an hour."

He gave her a twirl that sent her spinning. When she finally regained her equilibrium, the music had stopped and only the back of him leaving the dance floor could be observed. There was a keycard sticking her in her generous cleavage.

Hermione slowly walked back to Padma, who had somehow become the guardian of a bevy of wine glasses on a tabletop. "What's going on here?" She nodded at the profusion of alcohol on the table.

Padma stood with her arms crossed across her chest, tapping her foot impatiently. "All these witches are asking me to keep an eye on their drinks while they refresh their glamours outside. Apparently I look like a barkeep or something."

"Oh." Hermione counted at least eight glasses, charmed with flashing names.

Padma looked fully at Hermione and frowned at the expression on her face. "So, what's happened? You look—puzzled. Did you slap him? I really should have been standing closer."

"No…" Hermione said slowly, her brow slightly furrowed. "Padma, do I look alright to you? I'm still glamoured, right?"

Padma's eyes did a quick once-over on Hermione. "Yes, it's completely intact. What happened?"

"I don't know." Hermione sought to put a finger on what she had felt was wrong. "Something was—off. He was behaving a bit strangely."

"How so? He didn't leap on you right away? Because I only caught about three men walking by and discussing which of the younger witches were hot. Your description seemed to have made the list. The tall, stacked blonde in green and gold."

"Well, as to that, he's invited me up to his room."

Padma's eyes flashed in excitement. "Ooh! It worked! The bait worked! High five." She held a slim arm in the air and pursed her lips when Hermione only half-heartedly tapped her palm against hers. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know. Do you think he's guessed it's me?"

"I really don't see how. I mean, the wards in here aren't charmed against normal glamours that make you look—well, better, but they have been deliberately manufactured to guard against anything above a certain percentage of falseness. But this glamour—is more potion-based rather than pure charm work, and it's because of the plant we've been cultivating that we can utilise it—it's completely undetectable. Not to mention the fact that he doesn't have his wand. He's not capable of wandless legilimency, is he?"

Hermione had considered that. "As far as I know, only extremely dark wizards can do that. And I kept my walls up just in case, anyway."

"Well, then, if you've accounted for everything, it's possible your paranoia's getting the better of you?" Padma shrugged and looked as though the problem were completely solved.

Hermione nodded and gave a weak smile. That was the thing about Padma; she was always completely logical and seldom emotional. She was, moreover, supremely optimistic because of her lack of emotional fluctuation. Hermione, on the other hand, was still unconvinced. "Let me wait until Theo comes back and get his opinion."

Padma acquiesced good-naturedly with a shrug. "He definitely knows Draco better than I do,."

They got some drinks from a passing waiter as he circulated with a drinks tray. The drinks at their table remained in place, name tags flashing.

Theo strode up and stopped short at the array of drinks in front of them, nodding pointedly at the glasses. "What's happening? Getting started early, are we?"

"They're obviously not mine. Don't you see the nametags?" Padma's tone was the voice of reason.

Theo shrugged before tossing the entire contents of a flashing glass down his gullet, heedless of the absent owner. "Right, then. Well, that was a complete and utter disaster, thanks for asking, everyone."

"Oh, Patrice Lowensberg." With a pang of guilt, Hermione suddenly remembered Theo's goal for attending this event. He had been so casual and unconcerned that his motive for attending this event had been completely overshadowed by her grand schemes of revenge. "Did you find her?"

"There was a line to take photos with her. I couldn't even get within five feet."

"Maybe you need to get someone to introduce you," Padma said, her eyes scanning the room for ideas. "How about Draco? He seemed to know who she was, at any rate."

"Where is he, anyway?" Theo asked, swiveling his head around. "I don't see him anywhere. Have you smacked him already?"

Hermione tapped the keycard absently on the tabletop, where it made a click-click-click sound. "No I haven't. He's invited me up to his room."

Theo's eyebrows shot up as his eyes fell on the keycard in her hand. "Fast worker, aren't you? Or him. I really can't tell who's cosying up to whom with your little game there."

"Hermione thinks he's sussed her out. Do you think he knows?"

"Hmm. Has he said anything?"

"He seemed a bit disinterested, and then suddenly he gave me a line and slipped his keycard down my dress," Hermione said, holding up the card. "We didn't talk that much."

Theo narrowed his eyes in thought and surveyed Hermione critically before shrugging. "Honestly, I can't tell anymore, with that man. All I can reference are from things that happened when we were kids. Sorry I can't be of more help. Maybe he was trying to play it cool?"

"I suppose," Hermione said, her mouth twisting skeptically on one side.

"Keep your wand up, then, darling," Theo said with a distinct smirk. "You'll knock him dead. Not literally, I hope. We still need you back on the Himalayas."


	3. Step 3: Engaging in Hostilities

"Hello," Hermione said in her huskiest voice yet, determined to fully exploit her glamour.

She hadn't even known that this manor house was equipped with rooms for the attendees. It was indeed on the top-most floor, and the ceiling was charmed to look like the night sky, except brighter and with more stars. She stood with one hand on her hip, which was the extent of her sexy pose.

The smile on his face was pure Cheshire. "Hello yourself." Malfoy bracketed the door and the frame with either arm and was already crowding her not a full minute into their assignation. He had taken off his outer robes and his shoes. It looked like he didn't have an innocent chat over tea and biscuits on his mind, after all.

Disinterested, her arse. Clearly, the initial indifference downstairs had been feigned to get up her here. Hermione almost let out a disbelieving snort, which would have cast her entire appearance into suspicion. Honestly, she didn't know why she had ever imagined that he'd be different, better, somehow. He really was nothing more than a slag.

The thought enabled her to lift up her chin and smile silkily back at him as she walked into the room and he closed the door behind her. She was now completely confident he hadn't sussed her out in the least; he thought he was getting a guilt-free shag with a fit young blonde. She watched him cross over to the drinks tray and decided to throw her drink in his face before punching him.

"Drink?" he murmured, lifting one of the two drinks in his hands towards her. Then, when her eyes fell on the glasses, he held them both towards her.

That seemed innocuous enough. She took one and looked on as he downed it, watching her over the rim of the glass. "Vintage not your thing?" There was the hint of derision tinging his voice and in the lift of his thin lips.

It was this bit of derision that set her over the edge. She knew it was his thing, this little personality quirk to question people in an unknowingly insulting fashion, but it was something that never failed to get her back up. When she had gotten to know him better, she had realised that he always fell back on condescension whenever he felt uncertain, but somehow the defense mechanism never failed to annoy her. Surely he could just ask nicely. It really wasn't that hard to do.

Lips compressed, she took his glass and sipped at it. "As a matter of fact, I have vintage every—"

That was when everything went to pieces on her.

Her dress started slithering off around her as though the threads were woven from individual snakes. Her skin began to crawl and itch. Her bag fell to the ground as her hands pulled at her own skin in rising panic at the foreign sensation. All the while, she gazed up at Malfoy in horror as he stood calmly by, watching as the poison he gave her killed her.

Hermione fumbled for her wand. She would kill him first. "What the hell did you do to me, Malfoy!" she screamed, pointing her wand directly at him.

He didn't move, but the smile on his face grew in satisfaction until he had lost any nonchalance he was pretending. "Hello, Hermione."

She suddenly caught a glimpse of herself in the towering windows opposite. She felt her face and held up a strand of her hair up and watched as her reflected image did the same. The darkly mirrored surface showed a small woman with crazy brown hair wearing an oversized green dress falling off around her shoulders. Luckily Hermione hadn't opted for a strapless dress or she'd now be naked. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the dress hadn't been affected by whatever drink Malfoy snuck her.

She pulled out her wand to readjust her dress to her smaller frame, willing herself not to blush.

Malfoy walked forward and circled around her slowly. "Well, well, well. Bit anxious to see me, were you? Was that bit of get-up for my sake? Fancied a costume party? You needn't have bothered, darling. I prefer you as you are."

There was so much glee in his voice that Hermione didn't bother taking his words for a compliment. "Shut up, Malfoy!" Her wand didn't falter as she swiveled on her heels to keep facing him. "You knew—how? And stop circling me like a shark!"

His hands were held in the small of his back, but she didn't mistake that for unguarded. He scoffed at her, although he did stop prowling about. "Of course I did. C'mon. Is this amateur hour? You've been based out of the Himalayas for the past three years, and you arrived with Theo and Padma. It's really not hard to figure it out."

Hermione's eyes darted about as she took in the implications of his words. That meant—his act downstairs—but no, she was sure there had been a flicker of uncertainty in his face. He had been unsure, at least at one point. When had he known?

Malfoy smirked at her knowingly. "So why the big charade? What's going on here? Did you miss me that badly?"

In response, Hermione shot a flicking hex at his cheek.

"Ow!"

"Miss you? After what you did to me?" Hermione shrieked. "You have some nerve! Actually, no—"

She shot a jelly-legs jinx at him, which he deflected and also avoided by leaping up out of the way of the hex. He threw up a shield which she removed with a Reducto that caused both of them to jump backwards.

"Stop it! We're on the top floor!" he shouted, ducking behind a console.

"Admit you're wrong and apologize!" she shouted back from behind a sofa.

"Wrong for what, you crazy woman! Wrong for trying to romance you?"

"Wrong for stranding me in South America, you big—git!"

He popped up from behind the console. "I didn't strand you in—"

Her whirlwind hex picked him up and tossed him up in the air before dropping him on his side.

There was a satisfying thump and a grunt. "Argh! Dammit! I give! Granger, I give! I'm sorry, all right, you crazy bint! I'm sorry I tried to treat you to a nice romantic trip abroad!"

"That doesn't sound very sorry at all," Hermione said, summoning his wand and binding him as she approached with a satisfied Cheshire smile of her own. She was limping from her own Reducto. Dueling wasn't the same in her fifties. Sometimes she had to be careful not to wrench her shoulder while casting. "Romantic, was it? To be stranded for two weeks?" Theo was right; closure was so sweet.

Malfoy struggled angrily against the bonds before rolling onto his back and dropping his head backwards onto the floor. "What the hell do you mean, stranded? I was there!"

"No, you left." Her wand was pointed down at him.

"I'm pretty sure I didn't," he said, sounding annoyed and impatient. He stared at the tip of her wand before rolling his eyes to the ceiling, his lips pursed in irritation. "I left in a fit of anger, but I was back after I had flown around a bit and calmed down. You had already gone." His eyes found hers again before he turned his face away. There was something resembling resignation in his expression. "Can you let me up now?"

Hermione cocked her head to the side and considered him. It was just so hard to know when he was being sincere. He was just so damned good at playing up the snark that even when he was serious, she couldn't tell if in the next moment, he would leap up and shout, "Fooled you!" He was far more innocuous tied up on the floor. "I don't know. I sort of prefer you like this."

He raised a suggestive eyebrow, swiveling his head around to smirk at her. "Just like old times, eh?"

Hermione summoned her bag into her hands before undoing the spell on him. She rolled his eyes at his innuendo. "Oh, get up."

He sat up slowly and didn't stand up immediately. Instead, he made a show of adjusting his sleeves and brushing down his shirt front. "Anyway, if anyone had a right to be angry, it was me. You're the one who left me that lovely fuck-off note."

"You told me to go fuck myself! I don't know about you, but that's pretty synonymous with 'sod off' in most circles!" She got angry just thinking about it. Her wand hand twitched ominously.

He rose to his feet in one fluid movement, age and bring hexed apparently not having had as much negative effect on him as she had hoped. "No, I said, fuck your job, because no matter what I suggested, it always came first."

"What? You didn't! And it didn't." She had fallen back when he towered over her, but now fresh anger was giving her courage again.

"It absolutely did. You acted like it was a crime to whisk you away to somewhere fun. I was on the back burner every time there was an emergency. And the emergencies were nothing short of ridiculous. An analysis needed redrafting? 'Sorry, Draco, I have to postpone our date.' An early morning meeting? 'Sorry, I have to reschedule.'" Apparently just thinking about it made him mad. He kicked at her wineglass that had fallen to the ground near him, miraculously unharmed.

Hermione thought he was about to grind it to dust under his foot. Then she got annoyed at him for behaving like a petulant child. "Oh, shut up, Malfoy. Don't make it out like you're the victim here. Like you've been pining over me this whole time. Laying all the fault at my door."

"I didn't say—pining," he said, looking anywhere but at her, but his cheeks appeared flushed at her accusation. "But it would have been nice if you had even put in half the effort I did into making things work."

Now Hermione was really pissed off. "Really. Oh, really? All that effort is why I heard from you after I got back from South America? You're so full of shit, Draco Malfoy!"

Honestly, to pretend, after all these years of radio silence, that he was the unwitting victim and that she was the offensive perpetrator made her see red. This was so like him that she did not know why she ever thought he was different or changed. Without a second thought, she started to throw the only available thing in her hand—the Portkey falling out of her bag.

Something about her demeanour must have alerted him, because in the next moment, his eyes had widened in alarm, and he had leaped on top of her, trying to wrest his wand from her other hand. He got his wand just as she let go of the Portkey. It made contact with his chest and started to glow.

His hand was still firmly gripping her upper arm and she saw his eyes widen and narrow as his mouth formed a muted obscenity when—

—they fell out of the sky and landed on the vertex of a freezing snowscape.


	4. Step 4: Debating Terms

"What the h-hell!" Malfoy said as a particularly chilling gale of wind nearly swept them over. He was gaping, his teeth chattering.

In the next instant, Hermione had grabbed ahold of his forearm and Apparated them away to her Himalayan quarters.

"What was that!" He pried loose from her fingers and looked all around, his hands patting himself down as though to make sure he was completely intact.

She watched his panicked movements with irritation. "It was just a Portkey to the Himalayas. Would you calm down?"

"A Portkey to the Himalayas," he said slowly. "To the mountains, even. Do you go there often to enjoy the freezing altitude?"

"Not exactly." She turned away to spell a fire in the fireplace. Even two seconds in that freezing cold was enough to give someone the chills.

"It was for me?"

She turned back around to face him with arms crossed over her chest. "You deserve it."

To her surprise, a slow smile crept over his face. "Granger, I didn't know you cared."

Something about the cast of his expression made her back up. "What the hell are you talking about now? Of course I cared, you stupid, stupidarse. God, I could hex you to oblivion right about now."

He started to advance on her, and she backed up with not a little trepidation, her gaze fixed on the predatory glint in his eyes. "I thought I was doing you a good turn, you know. I thought when you didn't want anyone to know anything about us, that I was ruining your chances to become Minister." His hand reached up to brush a strand of her hair away from her face.

She knocked his hand aside. "That might have been believable fifteen years ago, you—you—Don't come any closer."

"Well, then I saw that you were getting all cosy with Weasley again. All those family portraits. Making it seem like you two were getting back together. You would have too, to get ahead in the polls."

"What in the name of all the Hogwarts professors are you talking about?"

"All those family portraits. Everyone together in the blasted Burrow. His fucking hand on your arse."

"His hand was never on my arse. He was married! With a kid. Two. Did you not get that memo?"

"His fucking hand was on your fucking arse in every single family portrait!"

He had backed her up against her own dresser. It rattled as it was shoved back against the wall. His arms bracketed her in on either side, his hands braced right next to her ears.

She stared straight back at him. "You're delusional."

"You always put him ahead of us. Him or your career. I was always dead last."

"Really. Oh, you just never change. Is this your little pity party? Poor little rich boy didn't get what he wanted, shagging on call twenty-four seven. Excuse me for putting family ahead of sex!"

He was so close to her that she turned her face to the side to avoid breathing in his face. His mouth was next to her ears as he said in a lower voice, "Fuck you, Granger. It was never just sex. Even though that's what you'd like to tell yourself."

And then he dropped his head and brushed his lips against the side of her neck. There was a whimpering sound; Hermione thought it might have come from her. God, it had been so long. Nobody had even come close. She didn't understand it in the least; still didn't understand it—why was it this man, of all people, who had to affect her so?

But then, she didn't care anymore.

The toes of his feet grazed against the tips of her shoes, making her realise that he had been mostly undressed on the mountain she had nearly sent him to face alone. There was another groaning sound, maybe from her as well. It had been so long since she had been with anyone, let alone the person she really wanted to be with. She peppered kisses on his forehead in silent apology as he sucked on her throat and her jawline. Then his hands clasped around the base of her jaw, while her hands gripped his hips before sliding to the front of his flat stomach and yanking on the front waistband of his trousers so hard he stumbled. He fell so heavily on her that both of them went sprawling against the dresser.

"Ow!"

"Fuck, I'm sorry!"

"It's fine, it's fine." Hermione grabbed ahold of his shirt front.

"I knew it was as soon as we danced," he said into her hair. "Before that, I hoped. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up."

Her hands started to fumble at his belt. His own fingers gripped her waist hard enough to leave bruises and then they gentled as they moved the neckline of her dress down so that her entire chest was bared.

"Wait—I'm—" At his words, Hermione suddenly became self-conscious. She wasn't the young girl from the first time they were together, or even the young divorcee with still-taut skin. He had been about to invite a gorgeous young blonde up to his room. As for her, things had started to sag. This all seemed like it would become a giant mistake. She pushed against his shoulders.

He didn't budge as his head lowered and he began to suckle on her nipple. A groan seemed to rip from his throat. "It's been too long."

She didn't know if she completely believed him, but she wanted to. It was a bit alarming how much she wanted to, despite all the hatred she had told herself she harbored for him. She was never good at this letting go business, but she supposed it was about time she started to live in the present. So she pulled him down towards herself and busied herself with undressing him.

When the belt refused to come loose under her hands, she took out her wand to Evanesco his belt. He yelped as his belt disappeared. "Hey, I liked that belt!"

"Don't be a ponce, Draco. I'll buy you another one."

"I like the idea of being kept by you," he growled against her mouth and bit her lightly on her bottom lip as he jerked her off her feet. He miscalculated and they went sprawling across a chair before falling to the floor.

"Dammit!" Hermione yelled as she fell on her shoulder.

"Fuck! Are you all right?"

Hermione winced and gritted her teeth. "My shoulder. I wrenched it casting that—never mind. It's fine, let's just—let's just keep going."

He helped her up and they fused together again. He walked her backwards until he had her pressed up against the window. His hands then whirled her around so that her face was pressed up against the curtains, his hand holding her in place around her nape. This was one of the positions she liked, and she panted in anticipation as he kneed apart her legs, his foot knocking her feet farther apart. He hoisted one of her knees up until she was balancing on the other foot on tiptoes.

Her breath grew faster as his other hand slid up the back of her raised thigh. She felt the heat of his breath against her back. She wiggled against his hold as his mouth started to close in on her—

And then he stopped and winced. Hermione felt herself slide down along the windowpane until her feet touched the floor.

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Now my shoulder hurts from falling on it. Several times," he said, giving her a pointed look with raised eyebrows. "I need to lie down for this."

"The bed. Race you."

He grabbed at her waist and she giggled as she lunged for the bed. They fell across it and rolled over, her bare torso pressed against his stomach. Her legs came up to encircle his waist and—

"Argh!" she said and fell back on the bed.

"Yes, argh," he echoed, kissing her down along her sternum down to her stomach, which wasn't usually a place where she liked someone to concentrate on anymore, since it wasn't as firm as it had been the last time they had been together.

But she had something else in mind when she pulled his head away from her midsection by the hair. "No, argh , as in I just sprained my hip when you pulled my leg up like that!"

"Play through it," he panted before holding the hand that was gripping his hair and going back down.

"Urgh, I can't." Her head fell back on the bed. "Between the shoulder and the hip, forget it."

He supported himself on his arms and surveyed her for a moment before collapsing next to her, sighing as he did so. "Fine. I didn't want to say it, but my back really is killing me too."

"Well, this was a wash." Hermione willed her breathing to slow. "Growing old sucks."

"Well, a lot of the things we used to do aren't really recommended for people with injuries. I've got potions, but they really need potions for the after-potion effects."

"Forget it. This was an abject failure." Hermione struggled to get up. It was embarrassing how weak her abdomen muscles were. She twitched for a moment like a bug on its back before finally rolling to a sitting position.

There was a dejected knot in the pit of her stomach, and not just from her failed attempts at sitting up. It was that they had wasted so much time apart and now nothing was going to happen. She felt vaguely like crying and she turned away from him so that he wouldn't know. It was different for him, of course—he could walk back into that ballroom and chat up another young witch. She would return to the Himalayas where she had put herself in self-imposed isolation. God, she was pathetic.

He hadn't moved from her bed. The hand closest to her stroked her back. "It's been sort of great, actually. I found out today you still cared enough to Portkey me to an icy death." He chuckled a bit. "From you, that's tantamount to a declaration of love."

Hermione would have pushed off his hand, but it felt surprisingly good on her sore back. "Shut up. Of course I cared about you, you damned—pillock. Why else would I have been with you when I could have been with literally anyone else who wasn't nearly so annoying?"

He was silent for so long, Hermione thought he had finally run out of wisecracks. Then he spoke in a surprisingly serious voice. "You would cancel five times out of ten. Sometimes I wondered—if I was just something on the side until something better came along."

His voice was so different—diffident, almost—that she turned back to gaze at him. There was an uncharacteristically vulnerable expression on his face before he hid it behind a wry smile.

"How could anything be better than you?" she scoffed with the appropriate sarcasm, lying back down next to him. "You know, I sent you owls to reschedule every time. When I didn't get a response, I just thought..." She shrugged and didn't finish her sentence.

He turned to face her. "You mean the notes you sent through that Weasley's damned owl?"

"If you mean by Ron's owl my owl, then yes, I used my owl Chudders."

"That stupid bird only sent me one owl, ever, and it was the first owl you sent me regarding some Ministry summons, after which it proceeded to leave me droppings in my morning tea. I never saw that cretinous bird again except when I was at your place. Smug little bastard."

Hermione turned her head to look at him with her mouth open. "It never sent you anything else?"

"Never."

"I... did not know this." Hermione slowly shook her head.

"You didn't listen to me when I told you!"

"I'm sorry! I thought you were just having a go at Ron again."

"First of all, I obviously would never stop having a go at Ron Weasley, so you're right on that point and, second, I accept your apology. Third, how dare you not believe me?"

"I thought you were exaggerating. But this makes a lot of sense. I found some of these owls I sent to you in a nest in a nearby tree, but I thought you had discarded them."

He glowered. "You saw them and didn't think anything of it?"

"You were angry. I thought you sent them back as some sort of gesture or something, I don't know."

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." His frown remained unabated.

"I know, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. After my shoulder and hip are better."

He cocked his head at her and laid back down next to her. He had stopped scowling and looked thoughtful. "Only one shoulder is hurting, right?"

"What's your point?"

"You have another hand, Granger."

She glared at him with all the force she could summon lying down.

He shrugged. "What? I'm a Slytherin. We're cunning opportunists."

Hermione shoved off his wandering hand. "You're an idiot!"

"Is your shoulder really that bad?"

"Bad enough that nothing's happening tonight." Her tone was tart and she gave a sniff.

After a moment, he spoke. "Here, my healer showed me a charm that works wonders." His wand traced a pattern on her shoulder. She felt a tingle and a warmth began to spread from the ache in her shoulder.

"Ohh, that's good."

"Good, huh?"

"Do my hip next," she ordered, pointing at the exact spot.

"Yes, bossy." He did a similar charm on her leg. It missed the apex of the ache, but it worked sufficiently well that she shuddered in relief.

"That's some charm."

"It was a very expensive session. Damned young hotshot healers. They didn't charge nearly that much when I was younger."

"Teach me."

He took her hand, holding the palm of his hands over the back of her hand, his forefinger layered over hers, and he traced the wand pattern in the air, guiding her hand as he did so.

"Let me try on your back," she said, and he turned away from her so that she could cast the charm on him. She watched a ripple of faint light starfish from her wand tip and sink into his skin. Then she brushed the tips of her hand down the still smooth pane of his back. He drew in a breath and slowly turned back to her. For a moment, they lay basking in the comfortable silence of the company of a longtime acquaintance, each lost in their own thoughts.

"It wasn't all bad, was it?" She turned to look at his profile, something she used to have memorised. Things were different now. There were lines around his mouth and eyes. But then he turned to look back at her, and the years fell away.

His eyes seemed to glow with that familiar silver light as he stared back into her eyes. "No," he corrected before he flipped his wand over his head where it unceremoniously clattered off the side of the bed to the ground. Then he reached for her. "It was the best."


	5. Step 5: Achieving Detente

Back at Hogwarts, when Draco Malfoy had first snogged her, her initial thought was that she hadn't thought anyone could be that good of a kisser.

Ron was—enthusiastic. But he was a ravenous kisser and her first impression of him, despite how much she loved him, was of wetness.

Whether it was because of Draco's thin lips, Hermione wasn't quite sure, but he was a careful kisser. No less enthusiastic, but somehow much more restrained, as though afraid of scaring her off. It had been more a kiss of testing, of tasting, accompanied by tantalising butterfly brushes of fingers against her skin, teasing her rather than forcing her. Nothing sudden, nothing forced; every touch carried with it a request for permission. Hermione would never have imagined someone like Draco Malfoy capable of such gentleness. She thought then, with some surprise, that she understood a little better why Pansy Parkinson had been so protective of him.

That had been her analysis at the time, of course.

When they had kissed at the Leaky Cauldron, she had drastically changed her opinion the instant the door of his room closed behind them. He had leaped on her like a desperate man and, holding her face between his hands, kissed her so voraciously she was taken aback. Hermione had been expecting that gentle, slow boy from Hogwarts. Instead, she met unanticipated rapaciousness that made her want to withdraw.

Then, his hands had gentled. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he had murmured against her skin as his mouth and tongue slowed. An apology from him had been startling enough for her to conclude that this wasn't the same man anymore.

He had taken both of her hands off his body and intertwined his fingers with hers. And though his fingers clasping hers were hard and unyielding, his thumb almost rough as he massaged it into her palm, his mouth and body were light and tentative. He was half the boy of yesteryear and half the demanding man she would be involved with for the next two years.

The aftermath was always the most awkward.

Luckily for Hermione, he had been asleep that first time. She had dressed quickly and quietly and made her way down to the Floos, which were also deserted this early in the morning. From there, she had gone home and burst into a massive cleaning spell in order to clear her mind.

By the time she returned to Hogwarts to talk to Rose, she had convinced herself nothing untoward had happened. She had just missed Draco at the school, which was probably just as well. That had made her sigh in deep relief. She didn't need any of his smirks this soon after a drunken—mostly—encounter.

That was before she had started running into him on nearly every case she had.

This time, today, Draco Malfoy was on her territory, specifically, in her Himalayan quarters. Padma and Theo weren't due to be back yet, but they would, and although Padma wouldn't care, she cringed a little at the thought of Theo's bright eyes sparkling at the two of them.

She sat up in bed and looked around for her clothes. She started to pull them on.

"Are you leaving now?" His voice was abrupt.

She looked at him over her shoulder, startled at the coldness in his voice. "No...I needed to use the loo. Did—you need me to go or something?" She stood, holding her breath as she waited for him to respond. It would really, really hurt if he left right now, as though this were just another one-night stand and he couldn't wait to escape. It felt a bit like it would hurt so much she couldn't be sure how she would respond. Probably not well.

"No, but you always left first," he said, sounding distant. When she looked back at him, he was holding his lips flat. "Sort of your modus operandi. So I just thought you'd be doing it again."

"My modus operandi?" she turned on him. "You're the one who left me in South America, or had you forgotten that?!"

"We talked about this already. Obviously I didn't actually strand you, but it's clear you thought I was just that big of an arse to do so."

He sounded bitter. Hermione subsided. She had been persisting in the belief that he had topped off their affair with a giant "sod off" and it was hard to come to grips with the fact that it had been a giant misunderstanding. When she spoke, she was calmer, although she was still just standing there in her knickers.

"I don't know where to go from here. I mean, I really don't." She hoped he wasn't going to be snarky and remind her that her intention had been the loo.

No snark seemed forthcoming. Instead, he looked unaccountably serious. "Am I standing in the way of your ambitions, Granger? Do you wantme to leave?" His lips were twisted up to the side. "Don't—tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me what you want."

"I—don't want you to go," she admitted, hugging herself.

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he held out his arms. "Come here."

She dropped her clothes and crept back into the bed with him. His body was warm and large under the blankets. Something stuck in her throat as she contemplated the thought of not seeing him again. If he should get angry with her and take off again as he had the last time. They hadn't even had a proper fight about it. Really, how dared he just take off like that? Some part of her knew she should be madder, but she was too tired to be mad right now. Twenty years had been a long time to hold on to your righteous anger.

He tucked her head under her chin and stroked her hair. "I wasn't lying, you know. I really thought I was doing you a favour."

She twisted out of his embrace to frown at him. "By telling me to fuck off and contact you when I made Minister?"

He didn't speak immediately. Then he sighed. She tried to pull away but his arms didn't move. She subsided again and resigned herself to listening to him. "It was your every waking thought. You thought of nothing else. You leapt out of bed if something came to you in the middle of sex. You were ashamed of me."

It was jarring and a bit ridiculous how differently they remembered the past. Hermione's memory might not been what it had been in the past, but this was taking it a bit too far. "What? No, I wasn't!"

"There was never a good time to make public our relationship."

Hermione sputtered and sat up in bed. "You—you—"

He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head in challenge.

"Alright, fine! I didn't want to go public because there was nothing to go public about . We were nothing. We were sleeping together! It wasn't ever going to go anywhere."

His lips twisted. "Thanks for that, Hermione. Thanks for letting me know that I was a piece of meat. Your sordid little thing on the side."

"Oh, really. Well what about you? You were playing dress-up. Never could resist telling me what to wear and commenting that my clothes weren't good enough." She scrambled up onto her haunches.

Finally he blinked. "What?"

"Like, thank you very much for pointing out how terrible I always looked and how I couldn't hope to come up to your exacting standards. And the women. The endless photographs with them whenever I cancelled a date with you. God! And you wonder why I never wanted to go anywhere public with you!"

"What women?" he shouted. "What fucking women are you talking about, Hermione? There hasn't been anyone since you entered my life. There were photographs, yes, because it entered my mind that being seen with me so regularly couldn't have been good for your campaign, especially when even a little bad publicity drove you over the edge. And you're complaining about the clothes? I was trying to help . You realise that's my job-right? That I oversaw the marketing portion of my family business? Right, so there was a part of me that wanted to buy you pretty things and dress you up so that you'd be—You know that you're beautiful, right? I shouldn't have to tell you this, but maybe I've been much too negligent.

"No, shut up. Don't roll your eyes at me. I love everything about you. It's taken me half my life to figure that out. It was never going to be Astoria for me and she knew that when we got married. I carried you into my marriage with me because you didn't give me a second look before you ended up with Ron. And the moment you were free, I tried as best I could to get you back. It doesn't matter if you sprout horns or get wrinkles or lose all your limbs, although that would be damned inconvenient."

She didn't move, not sure whether to believe him or not. Her bottom lip was going to start bleeding any time now from how hard she was biting on it, and her palms would bear the crescents from her nails. But it was imperative she understood, after so many misunderstandings. "For someone so in love, you sure stayed away for a long time."

"I thought that was what you wanted. I waited for you to recommence your campaign. I thought all those family portraits and the favourable reaction it got meant..." He clenched one hand into a fist and brought it up to his mouth, as though trying for patience. "Then when it never happened and I still didn't hear from you, I just thought—i just thought… I don't know what I thought. I figured it hadn't meant that much to you one way or another. I mean, you never gave me a second look when you married Weasley."

Hermione shook her head at him. "C'mon. You're not telling me you've been carrying a torch for me that long."

He didn't say anything for a second, then sighed. "I don't even remember anymore, to be honest. But it seems that my life has been revolving around you for longer than I can even recall." He sounded sad and resigned, but then he lifted up questioning eyes, and the hope shining out at her made her breath catch.

She had been an idiot. He had been an idiot. A hand intruded the corner of her vision. It looked large and warm and safe. He was right; she had been so accustomed to thinking poorly of him that she naturally fell back on it at the least provocation. Now, he had given her so much that it seemed stingy not to give him something back in turn. "Me too," she said in a very small voice before clarifying, "I mean. I feel the same way about you. There was nobody but you either."

His hand wrapped around her fingers and jerked her off her perch at the edge of the bed so that she was tucked back under his arm. She felt the smile on his face against her temple. "We're the worst at communicating, aren't we?"

"A pair of idiots, apparently," she agreed. Something had gone wrong with her and her nose was running at any alarming rate. She was sniffling so rapidly that at any moment, she might just burst into tears and that was untenable.

He gave her a little shake. "I thought you were the brightest witch of her age."

She laughed amidst the tears blurring her eyes. "Sometimes, stupidity is catching." She elbowed him in the side.

For once, he refrained from rising to the bait. "Together this time?"

"To the death," she said, half-jokingly. But then his arms tightened around her and she realised that it wasn't a joke at all to either of them, but a promise of a different kind.

* * *

"So, what happened?" Padma asked. "I didn't think it likely you had killed him, but then I remembered how hard the two of you fought in school, even over something as unimportant as the pronunciation of a triangle in runic alphabet transliteration, so then I was a bit concerned."

"Padma, darling, haven't you remarked the two cups on the table before we had even sat down for a cuppa?" Theo was smirking at Hermione. She blushed and his smirk grew as he looked around the lounge area of the small edifice that made up their base camp. "Is he still here, then? Waiting until you've made your grand announcement?"

"Shut up, Theo." Draco appeared from behind Hermione and bent down to kiss her on the side of the neck.

Padma stared at them with a fixed expression on her face. "I see it, but it's still—jarring."

"So, you're together finally?" Theo looked bored. He sipped from his cup as though they were discussing the weather. "And it's only been, what, four decades, give or take a few years?"

"Shut up, Theo," Draco said again.

"The price of that would be an introduction to Patrice Lowensberg." Theo raised his eyebrows pointedly. "Remember? If I were to manage to get Hermione to the—"

There was a thump under the table and Theo suddenly sat up straighter in his chair, his eyes wide and no longer bored. Hermione turned very slowly to stare at Draco, who smiled helplessly back at her with a small shrug.

"If you had just introduced me earlier, this wouldn't now be coming up in the conversation," Theo said mildly, reaching down to rub his shin. "Ah, well. The price of extortion!"

**AN: **Originally based on an episode of Hot in Cleveland (though it's departed quite a bit). Much thanks to the mods who worked so hard on this fest and helped me beta the original version, Torino10154 and shellydkitty. This was rewritten so many times that I almost lost hope of finishing it. Hope you all enjoy this version. Mistakes belong to me alone.


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